A Place at the Table

Hope Lutheran Eagle, Sunday after interim pastor finished

Romans 8:12-25

¹²So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh—¹³for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. ¹⁴For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. ¹⁵For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” ¹⁶it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

 ¹⁸I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. ¹⁹For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; ²⁰for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope ²¹that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. ²²We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; ²³and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. ²⁴For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? ²⁵But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

²⁴[Jesus] put before [the crowds] another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field;²⁵but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. ²⁶So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. ²⁷And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ ²⁸He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ ²⁹But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. ³⁰Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’ ”
 ³⁶Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” ³⁷He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; ³⁸the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, ³⁹and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. ⁴⁰Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. ⁴¹The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, ⁴²and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. ⁴³Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!”

Sermon – Meggan Manlove

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. This morning we have the second of seven parables Jesus tells in Matthew 13, all to explain the kingdom of heaven, or reign of God. You want to follow me, Jesus implies? You want to be disciples? Let me tell you a story and open your imaginations. 

This is second parable centered around seeds and harvest. If sowing seeds is complicated in early scripture verses by soil conditions that hinder growth, the problem in verses 24-30 concerns the intrusion of a hostile force. The field owner has an enemy who introduces weeds into the field. As the weeds take over the field with the crop of grain be ruined. Even those of you who do not farm but raise vegetables or flowers know well the challenge of weeds!

I only need to step out of my subdivision to be reminded of the Idaho farmers’ relationship with weeds and the ongoing process of controlling the tares while letting the crops grow.  We watch and wait to see the final outcome at the harvest. It’s appropriate, at least for those of us in an agricultural setting, that this parable is part of the summer lectionary, while we watch and wait for what we hope will be a bountiful crop. 

Maybe you all are great at waiting. I struggle. When I sit with the paper every morning, I feel like I’m hovering on a threshold, like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.  I think part of this uneasiness is simply a result of the continual news feed I have access to. Still, it often seems as if ours is the most anxious time in history, at least from what Margaret Guenther calls our selfish perspective in a remarkably affluent and outwardly secure corner of God’s world.  We live with heightened awareness of the unease, the shakiness and uncertainty, the sense of foreboding that is part of the human condition.   

We are not alone in this, however. There is a universality in the Apostle Paul’s depiction of an anxious time of suffering.  All creation, he tells the Romans and us, is poised: waiting for fulfillment, waiting with eager longing for something. There is the same universality in the story Jesus tells: the field is almost ready for the harvest, but it is far from perfect.  What should be a bountiful crop of wheat is going to be half weeds. But until that harvest, when there will be a drastic sorting out, weeds and wheat must be left to grow.  If the wheat flourishes, the choking weeds will also flourish.  We wait for the time of decision, the irrevocable sorting out that comes at the end.

The contrast of the parable of the wheat and weeds and the passage from Paul’s letter to the Romans reminds us that we are not there yet. Both passages suggest that this is a time of waiting, of letting things grow and unfold. But it is also a time of looking forward to some sort of resolution, an end time. We live in the “already, not yet.”  We are poised on the threshold.

For a congregation waiting to call a new pastor, today’s passages might assure you that you are part of a whole communion of saints waiting. We wait edgily, not for random, terrifying destruction. This is not the kind of waiting people are doing in Canada, checking every minute to see if the wind has changed direction and then knowing the fire is coming to your neighborhood next. 

We are waiting for something different. We wait, in Paul’s words, “to obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God.” As Jesus says in the parable, we await the coming of God’s kingdom. In different ways, Jesus and Paul are heralding the inbreaking of God’s rule on earth, the fulfillment of all our hopes and prayers when we pray—sometimes mindlessly—that God’s kingdom will come on earth and God’s will be done in every corner of the earth.

We wait. If we knew precisely how and when the waiting would end, then our life in Christ would be simply an exercise in religious persistence. It would be like standing in line at the grocery store checkout or waiting in the dentist’s office for someone to call our name. The tension in that kind of waiting is more boredom than anxiety.  

But waiting for the inbreaking of the kingdom is like no other kind of waiting. It is not the routine, humdrum marking of time in our daily lives, or the terror and dread of devastation. I liken it to a certain degree to first-time campers who had never been to camp but had their bags packed and jumped into the cars with joyful anticipation. Ours is waiting in deep deep hope for something that is not seen, yet yearning for it with a longing that is beyond words. This yearning for the coming of the kingdom is yearning for God.

Both Jesus and Paul use powerful images of growth and fruition.  Paul, who surely had little if any firsthand experience with the wondrous process of human birth, tells us that all of creation—which means all of humankind, all of us—is groaning in the pangs of childbirth. Just as the field of wheat with its intermingled weeds grows at its own pace, so birth cannot be hurried. Birth happens when it happens.

But what about those noxious weeds? What about the judgment Jesus makes so very clear in the parable?  I’m in no hurry for that final day—I’m happy to muddle on for a bit, living in the promise of things hoped for but not seen. Just having the promise is enough for now. Sometimes I find myself thinking about the weeds and wondering whether they have anything to do with me. I try to persuade myself that Jesus is talking about someone else, someone unworthy of saving, all those people who surely have no place in God’s kingdom. Surely, he is talking about those weedy people whom I would consign to the compost heap if not to the cleansing fire. It is much more comforting to hope that I am pure wheat and that the weeds are quite disposable.

But maybe the concept of weeds is more complicated. What if we are not pure wheat, but have some qualities of the weeds in us, qualities that we need to be free of before we can be truly fruitful. Or maybe we fail to grow and thrive because—fine-quality wheat that we are—we let ourselves be choked and thwarted by the weeds around us.

We bounce back and forth between these two pictures. On the one hand, the people of God are filled with the yearning for God. On the other hand, they are part of God’s garden, active and growing toward the ultimate harvest. Both images remind us that we are living in a not-yet time. We live in radical trust that God’s promise will be fulfilled. We wait. We labor. We hope for that which is not seen, but somehow knowing that what Paul calls our glorious liberty as children of God is all that truly matters.  

For all the harshness of the parable’s verdict on the unrighteous, the good and evil dualism is tempered. Because the world, the church included, encompasses both good and bad, none can presume to be good while others are not. In our Lutheran language, we are all both saint and sinner. And because the verdict belongs not to us but to God, and God is patient to allow the complexity and ambiguity, the people of God are not to condemn others.

That does not mean we should not call out injustice in this waiting time. Of course we should. And we, who have had glimpses of the kingdom of heaven, can work to change systems that harm and destroy. Knowing God’s love and grace, how can we not want to share those gifts with everyone we encounter?

Sermon preached at Celebration Lutheran, East Wenatchee, the Sunday after a retirement.

Matthew 10:40-42

[Jesus said to the twelve:] ⁴⁰“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. ⁴¹Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; ⁴²and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

I had to smile when I first read this morning’s gospel in the context of preaching and presiding at Celebration Lutheran today. When I came back to this synod, the synod of my internship, after my six years in rural Western Iowa, one of the pastors who offered me the most memorable welcome was Dave Haven. We were in Spokane for a stewardship event and ended up talking late into the night about South Dakota, Concordia College, the ELCA Youth Gatherings, and outdoor ministries. I later knew Dave to be a pastor very comfortable up front leading, making us laugh, singing our hearts out. But his first welcome to me was that long conversation about ministry and the church and what I hoped for my new call. He truly welcomed me, and I suspect many of you have similar stories. What a gift you had to celebrate his years of ministry in this place and to have what we in the church call “a good ending.”

I know from perusing your website, hearing about your congregation over the years, meeting some of your members, reading recent newsletters, that Pastor Dave was not the only one who knows a thing or two about welcoming people. Your building appears to be a place of welcome for a variety of outside groups, but hospitality and mission are not limited to the confines of these walls. And let’s be clear, our passage from Matthew is all about mission.

Our three verses from Matthew’s gospel today come at the end of a long discourse by Jesus. All of Matthew chapter 10 is Jesus sending out the Twelve Apostles in mission. Sometimes this chapter is called the “missionary discourse.” Jesus offers words of guidance, warning, and promise about the disciples’ mission. 

Here’s a summary: These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions (5). If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town (14). See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves (16). So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered (26). Whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me (34). And finally, whoever welcomes you welcomes me (40). 

In other words, Jesus is sending them into a dangerous world as part of his mission to love, save, bless and be reconciled to that world. But the disciples will find welcome. Those who welcome them also welcome and receive Jesus. 

As the bishop of our synod, I would be remiss if I did not share how Celebration Lutheran’s welcome extends beyond even this valley in real and vital ways. I mentioned Lutheran Campus Ministry in my greetings from the synod, but I want to tell you a story now about our collective impact on one college campus.

Since our inception as a synod, we have supported three campus ministries: at Eastern Washington University in Cheney, at Wazoo in Pullman and University of Idaho in Moscow. ELCA Deacon Karla Newman-Smiley has been campus minister at University of Idaho for over twenty years. For over twenty years, Karla has been showing up for students, faculty, and staff in Moscow, Idaho. She has again and again been a voice of welcome on that campus and in that community. She has continued to hone her skills, becoming a spiritual director, and she has participated in many campus committees and ecumenical endeavors. 

Last fall, the University of Idaho campus was rocked in a way it had never been, when four students were murdered. Life for the campus had finally returned to normal after the pandemic academic years and suddenly there was this tragedy of four deaths. What’s more, there was deep fear and anxiety. 

In the early hours of Monday, Nov. 14, the University of Idaho’s Office of the Dean of Students contacted various student ministries in an effort to provide counseling and other services to over 10,000 University of Idaho students. Karla noted in an interview that she found her “purpose to be supporting the Dean of Students and keeping The Center (formerly the Campus Christian Center) open as a space for students, faculty and staff, even though right now it feels like a suspended space.” 

While the campus felt deserted, there were some students who could not leave. Some students were local to the Moscow region. And of course there are faculty members also live in the university town. 

Karla had to break off one interview when a student knocked on her door. Later, a faculty member sought her out because they needed to talk. When Karla was able to return to the interview she explained that international students are on campus throughout the Thanksgiving break. Not only are they far from home, but many are not followers of Judeo-Christian religions. 

Organizations like Moscow Interfaith Association, work with The Center to provide spiritual support for all students of all faiths or no faith. Though The Center is supported by seven mainline Protestant denominations, Karla said there is “no need to proselytize” and The Center is available to everyone: it provides a welcome to all.

After the Thanksgiving Break, on Dec. 1, the University of Idaho held a candle vigil for the community. A few university staff spoke, and members of the victims’ families shared words. One campus minister was invited to pray—ELCA Deacon Karla Newman-Smiley. I cried so many tears when I watched the recording, tears of sadness for the families and community, tears of grief for our broken world, tears of weariness. But I also cried tears of gratitude for Karla’s presence. Karla’s words also led me to shed tears of hope in the God whose welcome is constant and steady, the God whose welcome never tires, never wavers.

I wish I could tell you the impact Karla’s prayer had on the students and families but it would only be conjecture. But what I want to say is to you today is thank you for being part of the Lutheran Campus Ministry story in this synod. Thank you for supporting a deacon who has welcomed people into various spaces for over twenty years. It should not surprise any of us that Karla was then invited and welcomed to offer words of prayer when tragedy struck. She, like you and me, is a theologian of the cross. She was able to name in truthful, loving, accessible language that the God of Jesus Christ is in the hidden, unexpected, and broken spaces of life, like Moscow, Idaho in the fall of 2022.

We have many gifts in our tradition, but one is the ability to grieve as community. When a pastoral transition occurs, we take time to laugh and cry and tell stories, to acknowledge our grief. When young people die tragically, we dig into the well of lament, crying out to God with our anguish, and knowing that God welcomes those cries because it means we are in relationship with God and with one another. We grieve because it is what the saints before us have done for centuries. Like them we grieve ultimately as people with hope, not false hope or hope full of sentimentality, but the deep Easter hope that is ours not just one Sunday in April, but all year long. Thanks be to God.